Living in Alto Clef

STRINGS
December 2007
Living in Alto Clef
11 Top Players Pick the Best Loved, and Most Overlooked, Viola Works of All Time
By Heather K. Scott
Searching for good solo viola repertoire may
sometimes feel like looking for a vegetarian at a
Texas barbeque. It’s true; the viola is often
overlooked by composers when it comes to
creating good solo music. As a result, alto-clef
players frequently have difficulty tracking down
compositions that speak to them—musical jewels
that are simultaneously beautiful, engaging, and
challenging.
To help uncover these hidden gems, we
queried eleven well-known violists and asked
them to share their all-time favorite viola work,
as well as a beloved unknown or overlooked
piece. The resulting collection from these
accomplished violists includes some music that
you’ll undoubtedly recognize … but may
introduce you to some lesser-known works as
well.
“We have such a small and limited
repertoire that we are always searching for
possible hidden gems,” says Lawrence Dutton,
violist for the Emerson String Quartet. Where to
look for those gems depends on your personal
preferences and how you feel about
transcriptions. For Dutton, it means turning
toward contemporary composers.
“The main source of music now for solo
viola would be in new music,” he says.
But for players like performer, educator, and
viola advocate Helen Callus, it means looking to
past
composers
and
not
discounting
transcriptions. “A lot of our repertoire [comes
from] transcriptions and we embrace this as part
of our existence,” she says.
Whether it be a work written especially for
the viola, like Atar Arad’s viola sonata, or a
transcribed piece, such as one of Bach’s gamba
sonatas, each can provide a learning and emotive
experience for the viola player—and his or her
audience.
ATAR ARAD
Atar Arad was the first prize–winner at the
Geneva International Music Competition (by
unanimous vote), and later sat as violist of the
legendary Cleveland Quartet from 1980 to 1987.
Arad has served on the artist-faculty at the Aspen
Music Festival and Yale Summer Festival. He’s
now on the artist-faculty at the Steans Institute
for Young Artists at the Ravinia Festival and is a
professor at the Jacobs School of Music at
Indiana University. Arad also composes works
for viola, violin, and string quartet. He premiered
his own viola concerto, Concerto per la Viola, in
2005—first in Bloomington, Indiana with Uriel
Segal conducting, then later the same year in
Brussels, Belgium, with Ronald Zollman
conducting.
ALL-TIME FAVORITE – Sinfonia
Concertante, K. 364, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“This music belongs both up there in the
skies and down here with us,” Arad says. “Its
eternal perfection and human drama are
unseparated, and so are its profound sadness and
unbound happiness.”
Arad remembers performing the Sinfonia
Concertante—known
for
its
warm
expressiveness and engaging dialog between the
violin and viola soloists—just one day after his
mother passed away. “There was no better way
for me to speak to her one last time,” he says.
MOST OVERLOOKED – Song of
Praise”(Viola Concerto No.1), Oedoen Pártos
In November of 2006 in Tel Aviv, Israel,
Arad gave his two first performances of this
composition, accompanied by the BuchmannMehta School of Music Symphony Orchestra,
Zeev Dorman conducting. Arad explains that
from the first stages of his work on this piece, he
experienced a strong personal bond with the
work. “Most fascinating to me in ‘Song of
Praise’ is the composer’s considerable selfindulgence, a possible flaw in any other piece of
music,” Arad says. “Himself a virtuoso violist,
Pártos knew how to offer a full display of the
instrument’s
expressive
and
technical
capabilities. His viola laments, laughs, sings,
dances, runs, reflects, speaks. Indeed, for 35
minutes the viola is in the center of the
universe.”
together in a way I have never heard in music
before,” Bigelow says.
HELEN CALLUS
International recording artist Helen Callus
serves as associate professor of viola at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, and is
the president of the American Viola Society (the
first woman elected to that title). She is also the
viola forum editor for the American String
Teachers Association Journal. Recently, Callus
accepted the position of artistic director of the
Centrum Chamber Music Festival. She has long
championed the viola works of violist and
composer Rebecca Clarke and such other 20thcentury British composers such as Sir William
Walton and York Bowen.
CLAUDINE BIGELOW
Claudine Bigelow is head of viola studies
and chamber music coordinator at the Brigham
Young University School of Music. She’s played
in the viola section of major orchestras,
performed around the world, and continues to be
an active recitalist. She’s on the board of the
American Viola Society and is president of the
organization’s Utah chapter. Bigelow also
coordinates the annual Primrose Memorial
Concert.
ALL-TIME FAVORITE—The Late String
Quartets, Ludwig van Beethoven
“I am deeply touched by [Beethoven’s]
music, how the voices interact with each other,
and how all voices become inner voices at
certain points,” Bigelow says. “[Beethoven’s
viola] music can be the most intimate as well as
the most extroverted of any I have ever played.
With Beethoven’s chamber music we have an
opportunity to express ourselves so completely.”
MOST OVERLOOKED—Viola Concerto
in A minor, Gyula David; Viola Sonata in G,
Arnold Bax; Romantic Fantasy for Violin, Viola,
and Orchestra, Arthur Benjamin; Pulse
Aria/Achoo Lullaby for Viola, Live Electronics,
and Tape, Stephen Andrew Taylor
Bigelow suggests the David Concerto as an
excellent piece for advanced students to learn
while preparing for the Bartók Concerto, and
says that the Bax Sonata has been overlooked as
one of the staples of the viola repertoire, though
“it should really be one of them.”
Bigelow would like to hear more people
play the Benjamin. “Violists complain that we
don’t have enough Romantic-period music for
us,” she says. “This piece has the lyricism and
sweep to be placed in that category.”
Pulse Aria/Achoo Lullaby is written for solo
viola and CD (a percussion track using sounds
from a newborn baby, such as a heartbeat,
sneezes, and so on). “The music explores the
inner life of a child and mother, their special
relationship, and the rhythms of their lives
ALL-TIME FAVORITE—Romeo and
Juliet, Sergei Prokofiev
“[This] is my absolutely favorite piece,”
Callus says. “It’s such amazing music.” Callus
suggests the arrangement by legendary Russian
violist Vadim Borisovsky. She recently recorded
the work for the ASV label in Frankfurt,
Germany (the CD is scheduled to be released in
fall 2008).
MOST OVERLOOKED—Romeo and
Juliet, Sergei Prokofiev
Callus’ all-time favorite viola work doubles
as a piece that she feels is often overlooked by
violists. “It is well arranged for the viola by
someone who knows how to write [and] arrange
for the viola,” she says. “It is virtuosic of the
highest order and incredibly beautiful—we really
need something like this in the repertoire.”
VICTORIA CHIANG
Victoria Chiang is a founding member of
the Aspen Ensemble Quintet, and is on the artist
faculty at the Peabody Conservatory of Music
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and the Aspen Music Festival. Chiang has served
on the faculty at the Juilliard School and Hartt
School of Music, and she was a board member of
the American Viola Society.
ALL-TIME FAVORITE – Sinfonia
Concertante, K. 364, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“I have to say that, forced into a decision
on my favorite viola piece, it would have to be
this Mozart work,” Cook says. “[The second
movement theme] has to be one of the most
beautiful viola lines ever written.”
MOST OVERLOOKED—Elegy for Solo
Viola, String Quartet, and Orchestra, Herbert
Howells
“It is very lyrical and full of soulful,
plaintive melodies as well as heartbreaking
emotion,” Cook says. “It is very well written for
the viola and I feel that you can just let the
instrument sing as the registers he writes help
create the colors needed.
“It is so well suited to viola and it is one of
very few pieces that a violist can perform with a
chamber orchestra.” Helen Callus has recorded
the work (with the Walton Concerto).
“It is absolutely beautiful.”
ALL-TIME FAVORITE—Concertpiece
for Viola and Piano, George Enescu
“This is one of my all-time favorite
pieces,” Chiang says. “It is a work that demands
virtuosity, lyricism, and elegance. It also is one
of the few pieces for viola in the Romantic
French style.”
MOST OVERLOOKED – Sinfonia
Concertante for Violin and Viola, Ignaz Pleyel
This is Chiang’s current favorite. “It is a
beautiful piece in the classical style of Haydn
and Mozart, with lovely melodic lines passed
back and forth between violin and viola,” she
says. “Violists need concertos! This is an
effective work, and a wonderful complement to
Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante.”
DAVID DALTON
CAROL COOK
After David Dalton completed his
doctorate under famed violist William Primrose
at Indiana University, he helped the legendary
violist prepare his memoir, Walk on the North
Side. The twosome also collaborated on Playing
the Viola: Conversations with William Primrose.
Dalton was instrumental in establishing the
Primrose International Viola Archive on the
campus of Brigham Young University.
ALL-TIME FAVORITE—“I don’t have
an all-time-favorite viola work,” Dalton says.
But he adds that several pieces have
resonated deeply with him. “[When] I first heard
the opening theme of the Walton Viola Concerto,
it affected me as a siren song. The Bax Sonata
As a native of Scotland, Carol Cook won her
first Scottish fiddle competition at age eight and
went on to make her concerto debut at 16. She
was recently a member of Mark O’Connor’s
Grammy Award–winning Appalachia Waltz Trio
(along with cellist Natalie Haas). Cook has
performed with the New York Philharmonic, the
London and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
She’s a member of the Lyric Opera Orchestra
and the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra.
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for Viola and Piano has remained one of my
favorites—it’s also neglected, in my opinion.”
MOST OVERLOOKED—“Rhapsody on
Folk Songs Harmonized, by Béla Bartók” Tibor
Serly; Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, Gyula
David
“Both works have a Hungarian flavor, of
course,” Dalton says. He adds that they are
colorfully orchestrated and accessible to the
advanced student. Though not rigorously
difficult, technically speaking, there are passages
and pages that will challenge the player.
“Audiences respond generously to these viola
works that are colorful, tuneful, and often
brilliant,” he says
Commissioned for Primrose by the Harvard
Musical Association in 1961, this work is “really
good music,” Díaz says of the piece he’s
performed in recital and at the International
Viola Congress. “It is always very well
received.” He adds that it is almost 15 minutes in
length and is wonderful for viola and piano. Díaz
points out that although the piece is very difficult
technically, it is really worth it.
KIM KASHKASHIAN
An educator at the New England
Conservatory of Music and one of the leading
advocates for contemporary music, especially the
Eastern European compositions of Tigran
Mansurian, Kim Kashkashian has recorded
extensively for ECM Records. Her most recent
recording, Asturiana, showcases the works of
Spanish and Argentine composers Manuel de
Falla, Alberto Ginastera, Enrique Granados,
Carlos Gustavino, and Xavier Montsalvatge. She
has recorded all the concerti listed here except
the Larcher and the Olivero, which are scheduled
to be recorded in 2008. All the concerti except
for the Berio were written for her, and she hopes
that other violists will perform these works.
Kashkashian will perform the US premiere of the
Betty Olivero piece on February 7 at Kaufman
Concert Hall in New York City.
ROBERTO DIAZ
Roberto Díaz is the new president of the
Curtis Institute of Music. He is a professor of
viola at the school and was previously principal
violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Díaz was
also principal violist of the National Symphony
(under the direction of Mstislav Rostropovich), a
member of the Boston Symphony (under Seiji
Ozawa), and a member of the Minnesota
Orchestra (with Sir Neville Marriner). He has
received numerous awards, including prizes at
the Naumburg and Munich international viola
competitions.
ALL-TIME FAVORITE—‘It’s the one
I’m playing!’ as Slava [Mstislav Rostropovich]
used to say,” Díaz quips.
MOST
OVERLOOKED—Fantastic
Variations on a Theme from Tristan and Isolde,
for viola and piano, William Bergsma
FAVORITE/MOST
OVERLOOKED—“My favorite concerti are
also pieces that I consider to be overlooked:
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Peter Eötvös: ‘Replica’ (1998); Luciano Berio,
‘Voci’ (1984); Tigran Mansurian, ‘ … and then I
was in Time Again’ (1995); Thomas Larcher,
‘Still’ (2002); and Betty Olivero, ‘Neharoth
Neharoth’ (2006)” Kashkashian says.
“The most challenging and exciting music
for me to play in recital these days is György
Kurtág’s ‘Signs, Games and Messages’ and
György Ligeti’s ‘Solo Sonata.’
Sir Georg Solti as a member of his Musicians of
the World.
ALL-TIME
FAVORITE—Walther
doesn’t favor one viola work over all the rest.
“It’s really hard to choose one piece from
all the beautiful, evocative, and endlessly
different pieces written for the viola,” she says.
MOST OVERLOOKED —The Three
Gamba Sonatas, Johann Sebastian Bach
Walther would like to hear more violists
include these three beautiful gamba sonatas in
their programs. “They
are
technically
challenging because of the nonstop nature of the
writing,” she says.
Walther feels that these three pieces can
teach a lot to violists. “It’s just such beautiful
music! They sound like they were written for the
instrument, especially when you play them with
harpsichord so that you aren’t having to produce
a big sound all the time and you can lighten up.”
PAUL NEUBAUER
Paul Neubauer has performed as a soloist
with more than 100 orchestras in the United
States and Europe. He serves as orchestra and
chamber-music director of the OK Mozart
Festival. Neubauer was principal violist of New
York Philharmonic for six years (joining at age
21 as the youngest principal string player in the
philharmonic’s history) and received the Avery
Fisher Career Grant in 1989. Neubauer is also an
artist-member of the Chamber Music Society of
Lincoln Center and has been featured on CBS’s
Sunday Morning and Garrison Keillor’s hit
National Public Radio series A Prairie Home
Companion.
ALL-TIME FAVORITE—“I hate to be
cliché,” Neubauer says, “but I try to make
whatever I am playing at the moment my
favorite piece.””
MOST OVERLOOKED—Romance from
the Suite for Viola and Piano, Benjamin Dale
(1906)
“It’s a beautiful English romantic work that
has a lot of pizzazz!” Neubauer says of this
selection by the late British composer. “This
work was a great favorite of its dedicatee, Lionel
Tertis, as well as William Primrose.” According
to Neubauer, this romance was featured in
numerous performances and recordings by both
of these great artists. “I contacted the publisher
of the romance in search of the orchestral parts,”
Neubauer says, “and I was informed that a Mr.
William Primrose took out the parts in 1942 and
never returned them!”
MELIA WATRAS
Melia Watras has performed worldwide
and has appeared as a soloist. She performs
extensively throughout the United States and
Europe with the award-winning Corigliano
Quartet. A native of Hawaii, Watras began
studying piano at age five, and soon took up the
viola, making her debut as a 16-year-old soloist
with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. Watras
later won the National Wendell Irish Award.
Today Watras is assistant professor of viola at
the University of Washington, where she teaches
viola and chamber music.
GERALDINE WALTHER
Since 2005, Geraldine Walther has served
as the violist of the Takács String Quartet.
Before then, she had been principal violist of the
San Francisco Symphony for 29 years. She had
also been assistant principal of the Pittsburgh
Symphony, the Miami Philharmonic, and the
Baltimore Symphony, and she served as
principal violist with the Mainly Mozart Festival
in San Diego. In 1995, Walther was selected by
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ALL-TIME FAVORITE —Sonata for
Viola, Atar Arad
“I spent many years at IU as Atar’s student
and teaching assistant, so I got to know him and
his music making well,” Watras says. “Many
people know Atar as a fabulous viola soloist and
chamber musician. He’s also a terrific
composer.”
Watras believes this piece is a significant
contribution to the viola literature. “I was lucky
enough to study the piece with [Arad], and
record it for my first CD, so it’s a very special
piece for me.”
MOST OVERLOOKED—Sonata for
Viola and Piano in Bb major, Op. 36, Henri
Vieuxtemps
“I find it to be a very charming piece that
probably doesn’t get the respect that it deserves,”
Watras says. “The music of many of the historic
violin virtuosi-composers is often passed off as
physical exercise, rather than beautiful music.
Vieuxtemps writes with passion, charm, grace,
and beautiful bel can to lines.”
Watras especially loves the barcarolle
movement, which reminds her of the Offenbach
opera Tales of Hoffman. “It lays well on the
viola,” she says, adding that the work is virtuosic
and satisfying to perform. “It’s not heard that
often in concert, so it’s fresh, while still being
familiar to an audience’s ears.”
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